evening. Even the short walk to The British seemed stale. There was little sense of anticipation. He knew that the feeling would change. A few drinks would change it. In the pet shop window a hamster was going nowhere as it raced a plastic wheel.
In The British Rasher's absence hung heavily. In the early evening the barmaids were even more indifferent as they contemplated their evening shift and the majority of the punters were on their way home, a swift half of courage to get them there. These were not serious drinkers. These people had families and were simply keen on a slight delay, a little pause in the perfunctory day before their perfunctory evening, train-spotters who were merely passing through. He was early. The familiar faces had yet to arrive.
The malevolent day was drawing to its close and alcohol, would speed it on its way.
“Good riddance!” he said and the barmaid in a tight black dress blinked and looked over the bar at him as though he was mad. She was quite right, of course.
Beneath red-flocked wallpaper with its nicotine-stained edges they'd begun with 6 and 7, moved to 23 and 26 and finished with lychee and fresh mango. Two bottles of Wan-King, the house white, proved slightly more satisfying than its promise.
Laura came back from the loo. He noticed the dilation of her pupils and her sudden elation.
Laura giggled, wasted. The Wan-King was lethal; drink enough and you'd go blind, so they said, that's why the Chinese squinted, but that was probably an old Chinese wives’ tale. She let him into a secret. “Paul asked me to look after you. He thought you would be lonely. That's why I made an exception. I normally keep to my regulars. I owe him one for the telly and video he got me. The DVD is coming, on a promise. He's so grateful that you put him up and for the grapes that he wanted to give you something in return. So I agreed to perform a little trick for you, later. I have a whole box of them, Mr Lawrence. A whole box of tricks.”
He lifted an overblown eyebrow. Leaving the tricks aside he knew a thing or two about boxes. Get to his age and, if the memory was up to it and that had a lot to do with diet – plenty of mackerel and walnuts and Heinz Tomato Ketchup – most men could remember the odd performance when they might have excelled. Even so, he was rather crestfallen and stuck out his lower lip. Eventually he said, “So it wasn't a coincidence then, our meeting in The British?”
“Mr Lawrence,” she giggled like a teenager contemplating her first blow job. “Grown-ups don't believe in coincidence, do they? Come on. Swallow these and lighten up. You're much too dark.”
Still downhearted Mr Lawrence said, “And what are these?” “A bit of Adam, to use an old-fashioned term, that's all. Down them with your wine.”
“All of them?”
“Go on, be an old devil.”
“Well, perhaps this once, and only because it's been such a dreadful day. I'm not a druggie, you know? I’m not one of your long-haired surfers from Newquay.”
“Come on, Mr Lawrence, take me home. Let me tuck you in and blow out your candle.”
“I have electricity. It’s back on, no thanks to my lodger.”
“Yes, he told me about that.”
“How about a cup of coffee and a brandy and we'll leave it like that?”
“As you like. It's all paid for anyway.”
“Where does Paul get his money?”
“Who knows? Why do some birds hop and some birds walk? Why do some birds come and some birds can't? Who knows? But I have enjoyed talking to you. Maybe, one day, you could teach me to paint. I would love that. There is something about watching an artist work, you know, painting, that's really like, a turn on. I don't know. Understand?” Perplexity pulled down his hairline. He said, “No. Not a word of it. It sounds like balderdash. But it doesn't matter. One day, Laura, I will teach you to paint. But you have too much living to do first.” As though she hadn't heard him she continued, “It's like, creating. That’s it. Going after perfection. You should paint me, Mr Lawrence for I'm as close to perfection as you can get.”
“I know that, Laura. My goodness, I can see that. But you're the wrong colour. Only the members of the Caucasian race can be perfect
– pale white-skinned people. People like me. God made us in his own image and he was white, wasn't he? Sunday school teachers don’t tell lies. Whiter than white with flowing blond curls and a perfectly trimmed beard. And his only forgotten – begotten – son, was even whiter, even after forty days in the wilderness. And no matter how I look at you, and in what light, you’re not white and you certainly don't have a beard.”
“Oh, Mr Lawrence, you've been looking in the wrong place.” He chuckled. “I've no answer to that.”
“You might have later, if you play your cards right.”
“That's the problem. I've never been a card player.”
“Well, there you are then. They say unlucky at cards lucky in love.” He was pleasantly drunk and so was Luscious Laura. Her eyes were black and intense.
“I have another confession to make,” she said coyly. The pretence made her even more delicious.
“What was your first? Remind me?”
“Paul, for goodness sake. That we didn't meet by accident.” “Oh yes, all these confessions. I feel like a priest.”
“Those pills, they wasn't all disco biscuits. It was Paul's idea. He said you'd need them.”
“What have I been fed, exactly?”
She blew out her cheeks and eventually admitted, “Two were adams, and they'll get you all loved-up, but the other two were Viagra, Mr Lawrence, and they'll keep you up all night.”
“I'll probably have a heart attack. I can feel something throbbing even as we talk. You’ve deceived me, Laura, and I should be angry but I’m not.”
Everything was outrageously funny: the total on the bill presented by a puzzled waiter, the look on a flattened duck's face in the window and the sign hanging on the huge brick Pentecostal walls opposite, the one frequented by Mrs Puzey and her brood, which read CHRISTIANS, SING
OUT WITH EXULTATION.
Even the sting of the night air could not dent their gaiety and it came as a surprise when he suddenly said, “I hate Christmas.” But the twinkle in his eye gave him away. “It reminds me most of chocolates in bright sparkling wrappers and the orange and strawberry creams that are always left in the tin?”
“I like strawberry creams,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “I thought you might.”
Between the brandy and the coffee was the colour of her skin. Colours seemed deeper, all of a sudden. She wasn't going to go; she made him lock the shop door and turn out the shop lights and then she peeled off her green pants.
“Buttons! Mr Lawrence you’ve got buttons!”
“I’m an old-fashioned man, Laura. No till, no TV, no computer, no wireless and definitely no zips!”
“What’s a wireless?”
She fiddled with his buttons then said, “Oh, Mr Lawrence, look at me now, I’m playing the mouth-organ. I’m following my old man into the music industry.”
“But he disappeared, Laura. I hope you don’t disappear.”
“Like the missing women, you mean?”
“Exactly, but my goodness, you’re right. I can hear the music. I’m finding it quite stirring, even patriotic in a strange sort of way. A bit like going into battle, I suppose.”
After a while she stood up and licked her lips and he noticed that her pubic hair was different; to begin with there was more of it, with isolated tufts floating upward toward her navel, tiny tropical islands on a sea of rich Robot City tea. It all looked silky soft but felt quite coarse. The skin around her tight stomach had lost some of it's pigment: a harsh stiff-haired brush would do it; burnt sienna over West Indian sepia.
He was, nevertheless, looking into a black hole. And that was dangerous. Back in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher was in power and the USSR invaded Afghanistan, Disney had lost a fortune looking into a black hole but
